Why It's Good to be a Horror Fan Now More Than Ever

A lot of people say they don't make horror movies like they used to, and I'd mostly agree with them.  Horror movies aren't the same these days, but that's not a bad thing.  It's easy to look back at the past and feel a sense of nostalgia and think simple things were way better than they actually were.  Nostalgia is potent.  Nostalgia is childhood.  Nostalgia is good times.  But for horror movies, then as opposed to now is a different experience.  We can talk about going to the prom or when you lost your virginity, or the first time you drank alcohol or smoked cigarettes, but horror movies are something different.  Nostalgia has been thrown out the window with this particular subject.  Here's why it's good to be a horror fan in this day and age.

It'll start off by a story about how I first obtained a shitty VHS print of "Cannibal Holocaust."  I was in high school, and I was out in a bad part of town after school one day.  One of our friends had a car, so we had access to these seedy places.  Here, bums would ask you for change and people would piss in alleyways at four o'clock in the afternoon.  A rough place, right?  So this guy with the car was big into skateboarding.  Underneath the skateboard shop he liked was a strange sub-store.  They sold bong and marijuana-related paraphernalia, and of course, they sold a ton of porno.  But what's really important was what was in that corner of that porno part of the store. 

A small wall of horror movies awaited me, ranging from Troma films, to "Faces of Death," to the lesser "Traces of Death."  This was real death. The real intense shit.  But there was also a movie that really stuck out from all of those, what ended up claiming the twenty dollars in my pocket.  It was a movie called "Cannibal Holocaust."  I didn't know anything about it, except the cover showed a tribal person impaled from the anus and out the mouth on a wooden pike.  Oh my God, it looked so real.  My friends chided me to buy it because I wouldn't put it back on the shelf.  I lied to the store clerk and said I was eighteen, when I was really sixteen.  But I got my VHS copy of "Cannibal Holocaust" and that's all that mattered. 

I watched it and was deeply disturbed by the realism of this mockumentary of a group of filmmakers studying a cannibalistic tribe and their exploits.  It really crossed morality and shocked me.  It also shocked my high school friends who I challenged to watch it.  "Cannibal Holocaust" became a small phenomenon at my high school.  I let anyone who said they'd accept the challenge of watching this film to borrow it.  The movie really was a challenge.  Watch me and see what you haven't seen before, the movie said.  It's almost like the porno part of the store.  Horror movies are a challenge for the viewer to watch the forbidden.  Dare yourself to expand your life experience.  Once you cross that path, you won't be the same.  This movie is morally wrong, don't you want to see why?  It's damn exciting. 

This feeling is missing from current horror movies for the most part.  There's isn't much of a challenge in movies these days.  The movies are safe and digestible by the general public.  PG-13 horror flicks attack the movie screen and real horror fans are left standing around with their dicks in the dirt.  But not any longer, damn it. 

Why is it better now than years before to be a horror fan?  One answer to that would be the popularity of the DVD format.  Tons of old horror movies have been released uncut and restored.  They look better than ever, and those morally wrong scenes can finally be watched.  But here's the kicker.  I don't have to enter a bad part of town and buy a film as if it were illegal contraband.  I don't have to go to a theatre with sticky floors and dirty seats to see these films.  It's all in the comfort in my own home, or for some, what they've pirated from the Internet. 

My point is a person watching horror films these days has access to banned horror movies, including "The Video Nasties Era" and ones that were known for being cut for certain gruesome scenes that were deemed too strong for the general public.  These films won't reach any mainstream theatres, but instead, our own home theatres. 

Why is it better to be a horror fan now that back in the day?  Think about the past.  Most movies would either hit the video shelves as VHS then disappear, or they'd have a brief cable run and then, alas, again, disappear.  But with DVD and Blu-ray, these films are being restored and re-released better than ever constantly.  Movies like "Frankenhooker," "Bloody Moon," "Pieces," "I Spit On Your Grave," "The Burning," "The Human Centipede," "Martyrs," and hundreds and hundreds more are constantly being put out on the market, including a fully restored version of, yes, "Cannibal Holocaust."  Sure, some of these films are great and not so great, but the viewer isn't put out too much to find these and watch them.  It's relatively easy with Netflix, Internet retailers, and companies that have the technology to restore these films.  This wouldn't happen in the 80's or the 70's.  

Why is it better to be a horror fan now?  Think about the movies that are being release these days, like the sequel to "The Human Centipede."  It was banned by the UK outright, but I guarantee you it'll be released uncut on DVD, and maybe even Blu-ray.  Hi-def nastiness easily accessible, right?  Sure, it might be morally questionable, but let the viewer decide, the viewer who buys the film or watches it on the Internet.  Fuck mainstream theatres.  If horror fans don't show up to the theatres, they'll show up on the retail market.  And for the most part, horror fans have showed up to view these morally questionable films. 

My point is if I was an adult twenty or thirty years ago, I never would've seen Lucio Fulci's "Zombie" re-mastered and in its uncut glory.  "Friday the 13th Uncut" would only be a pipe dream.  And let's not forget when Paramount said the original "My Blood Valentine" uncut didn't exist, and yet, it was finally released uncut only a year or so ago.  This wouldn't have happened back in the day.  Nostalgia's got nothing on accessibility when it comes to horror movies. 

This is a great time to be a horror movie fan simply because I can watch many movies that either became obscure, banned, or wouldn't see the light of day because there wasn't a way to get the word or the movie out to a widespread audience.  Now there is, so keep an eye out.  There's always a forgotten or cut horror movie coming out to buy in its complete and uncut glory.  Damn, it's good to be a horror fan. 

DVD Review of "Atrocious"

Tapping the vein of such films as "Quarantine," "The Blair Witch Project," and "Paranormal Activity" comes the movie "Atrocious."  Unfortunately, the vein in this body is tapped dry.  That's not to say a "found" footage movie can't be interesting or scary.  If you want to see something more worthwhile in this category of scare film, check out "Lake Mungo."  Great flick. 
Okay, back to "Atrocious."  This movie barely clocks in at an hour and ten minutes, and most of those precious few minutes are wasted.  Two kids check out the legend of a ghost woman who walks "the laybrinth," what's actually an elaborate courtyard in the woods type place near the big house they're staying at for the weekend.  These kids walk around, waste time, a dog is found dead, and did I mention a wishing well is involved in this story? (Remind you of another movie called "The Ring").  Towards the end, there's a scene where the two main characters, the two teenagers, are running through the woods at night, fleeing from something or someone, and I expected to see something lunge out at them or anything scary, but it doesn't happen.  It only pads the running time.  I'd say the last ten minutes would be the only minutes you'd actually want to watch.  There's a few seconds of disturbing imagery, but nothing to waste your time with, to be honest.  I don't want to spoil what actually happens, but the horror part of this movie is contained in the last five to ten minutes of the film, and the reasons for the scariness are glossed over to the point where what potential this movie had is squandered.  A family friend of the teenagers talks about the legend of this ghost woman at the beginning of the movie, but the explanation is very broad and unspecific.  So frustrating.  I feel like I've wasted my time with this movie.  Rent it and watch the last ten minutes if you really want to experience this movie and not waste your time.  All build up.  No pay off.  As a special note, rip-off films riding the success of other flicks can be very entertaining.  I love cheesy rip-offs or sequels, but this doesn't bring anything half-way interesting to the plate. 

Grade: C-

Scorpion Releasing's "Final Exam" DVD Review

Fan of slasher movies from the 80's?  Fan of slasher movies from the 80's without any gore?  Wait, wait, don't give up on this movie just yet!  Sure, "Final Exam" falls into the "average" slasher movie category, and there's no real mystery to who the killer is because it's just some random guy who justs shows up on campus and starts picking off people.  But the one thing that does work for "Final Exam" is its mood.  Mid-terms are over, and the campus is nearly abandoned.  Nobody is around to help the characters in distress.  And there are two really funny characters named "Radish" and a guy that reminds me of "Ogre" from Revenge of the Nerds that I really enjoyed.  So if you can appreciate mood and characters without gore or mystery, then give this one a try.  I enjoyed it much more watching it the second time around on Scorpion Releasing's DVD with delectable horror host "Katarina."  Unlike "Maria" from Code Red's line of "Maria's B Movie Mayhem" line, Katarina appears to have actually watched the movie and has formed her own opinion of the film.  Her speil was brief, though, but enjoyable.  Also, the film transfer is beautiful!  So overall, a good buy for big time horror fans and a rental for those curious about an old school slasher film without blood. 

DVD Release: A
Grade for Big Time Horror Fans: B-
Grade for Everybody Else: C

Night of the Demon Code Red DVD Review

Having viewed "Mardis Gras Massacre" from Code Red's line of "Maria's "B' Movie Mayhem flicks and being seriously dissapointed in quality and content, I forced myself to have an open mind with "Night of the Demon."  From the hype of being a "Video Nasty" and often regarded as ultra gory, including an infamous penis ripping scene, I still had some reasons to be excited about viewing the film. So I'll get this out of the way, the tranfer isn't restored, as per the disclaimer at the beginning credits.  On the DVD disk itself it says "UNCUT..." as if Code Red isn't sure what version they really do have.  Maria as host again is underwhelming.  You get about two minutes of her trying to be cute, but she doesn't have any real movie knowledge of "Night of the Demon" or shows any honest interest in these kinds of films.  She's a body for hire.  Where's Elvira when you need her?  So back to the film itself.  A professor leads a group of college students to the woods to investigate random disapperences of people in the woods and the suspicion of Bigfoot being the culprit.  You get a lot of meandering around the woods, talking to towns folk, and flashbacks of Bigfoot killing random people.  The group even runs into an attempted rape during a sacrifice to their Bigfoot God.  All of this is done by poor acting, some of it funny, most of it headache inducing.  Okay, so let's cut the shit.  Is the gore good?  Are their lots of boobies?  Does Bigfoot kick some serious ass?  Yes and no.  The gore isn't done with a whole lot of flair, though Bigfoot throwing a guy in a sleeping bag in a heap of sharp sticks was pretty funny.  The rest is pretty amateurish; even the penis-ripping scene fails to live up to the hype.  It's backyard DIY gore, so don't expect Tom Savini caliber effects, or even effects from a Hinzman film.  So is this film so bad it's good?  It'd say fifteen minutes of this film is worth watching, the rest is terribly boring.  It's an overhyped video nasty movie, at best.  It's more enjoyable than "Mardis Gras Massacre" by a severed penis, but it's no "Troll 2."  Am I pissed I purchased the movie?  Not at all.  It's a great addition to the collection for the rabid horror movie collecter, but if you're a casual fan of B-movies, then stay away; paying for this would piss you off. 

DVD release quality: C

Enjoyability for the true b-movie fan: C+

Enjoyability for the rest of the world: D-

"Mardis Gras Massacre" DVD REVIEW

Okay, I'm going to start doing movie reviews on my blog, and I'll start with a really weird obscure film.  I just bought the Code Red DVD release of "Mardis Gras Massacre."  The film has the hype of being a "Video Nasty," one of the films banned in the UK for its extreme violence and nudity.  Meh.  The movie is underwhelming, really, once you actually see it.
A lot of people have said this is a take on "Blood Feast" by Hershell Gordon Lewis.  Sorry, but "Mardis Gras Massacre" falls extremely short of that comparison.  I love Hershell's film, despite its shortcomings, but this piece of crap takes the cake!  The film takes forever for a kill to actually happen, and when it does, it's just a close-up of a fake body cast being sliced open and the killer digs around and pulls out an enormous heart that's probably a real pig heart.  It's the same killing scene over and over again with a different prostitute.  Self-righteous man kills "evil women" (who are prostitutes, as I mentioned) over an alter to sacrifice to the gods, and it happens over and over again.  There's no real attempt at spicing it up or doing cool camera angles.  The side story with the detective is boring and tedious.  No hammy fun at all.  Cheap can be fun, but man, cheap isn't fun in this case.  It's depressing.  I can only imagine what the people did to pass the time in the theatres during this film (if it ever made it to any theatres). 
Okay, so I've sat through a lot of crap in my time.  I really have suffered in the process of being a horror fan.  And maybe I'm asking for it taking risks with movies like this.  But this movie was BORING.  It's inept in every way possible.  I love movies like "Microwave Massacre" and "Shatter Dead" and other low budget fare, and it doesn't bother me if certain aspects of the production are lacking, but in the case of "Mardis Gras Massacre," the movie is just shit.  It's not so bad it's good.  It's bad.
In the end, I add it to my growing collection of movies with trepidation.  It'll probably end up next to an equally crappy movie called "Boarding House," which, what do you know, is another "Video Nasty."  Go figure. 

Grade: F
DVD release: C
Extras: C (Didn't exactly care for the Maria Kanellis host spot, but maybe on the next DVD release, she'll do better. And the interview with William Metzo wasn't the best either. I guess it's hard to care about a movie that sucks so bad.)
Final Words: BIG let down.